How Do You Say This in Korean? (22 Feb 2013)

Welcome to the 2nd episode of “How Do You Say This in Korean?”! This is a weekly segment, published every Friday, where teacher 경화 (Kyung-hwa) will be joined by a co-host of her choice each week to answer some listener questions. The questions we will be answering in this series are mainly about how to say certain things in Korean.

How do you say “when I was younger” or “when I was a little girl” in Korean? = 제가 어렸을 때

How do you say “I am (persons name) son” or “I am the son of…” in Korean? = It is more natural to simply say, ‘My father’s/mother’s name is [ ],’ ‘저희 아버지/어머니 성함은 [ ]예요.’

How do you say “Air traffic controller” in Korean? = 항공 교통 관제사

How do you say “Good luck in your match today.” in Korean? = 오늘 경기/시합 잘하세요.

How do you say “I’m mixed.” or “I’m from many countries.” in Korean? = It is more natural to say, ‘My father/mother/grandfather/grandmother is from [ ],’ ‘저희 아버지/어머니/할아버지/할머니는 [ ] 사람이에요.’

If you want to listen to the entire series or check all the previous questions before you send in a new one, please click here.

Here’s what I found: Originally there is a saying “개 꼬리 삼년 묵어도 황모 되지 않는다” – “Even if the dog will take care of his tail for 3 years it won’t become tail of a weasel” (valuable). Which means that things that naturally bad, no matter how much they’re taken care of, they won’t become good.

Now the idea is that you compare the worthless dog’s tail fur to expensive weasel’s tail fur. Fur is 털 so dog’s tail fur is 개 꼬리털. Originally in prison, from that saying, they came up with the word 개털 (dog’s hairs) by dropping 꼬리, so it means “worthless person” or “bad person”, but then meaning grew to penniless person.

Just translated some post on a forum. So… it makes sense, but I don’t guarantee 100% accuracy.